Knowing that podcasting won’t make you rich overnight, you need to work at building content that people are willing to invest in. Make sure you have a loyal & engaged following who will buy what you’re selling. If your show is successful, this may turn out to be a very rewarding endeavor. If you want to know how to make money from podcast, stick to the end of this article.
While most podcasts struggle, some hack the system and hack big money. For example “The Joe Rogan Experience”, ”Draftsmen”, “Slewverse”, “My Favorite Murder”, and “Armchair Expert”. All three of those shows earn millions of dollars each year. They average tens of millions of downloads each month and typically pull from multiple revenue streams like advertising and sponsorship to build their profit.
It’s possible to make money with fewer followers nowadays. Amazon affiliates for example provide sponsorships for podcasts that have around 1,000 downloads per episode. That’s not too bad! Want to be able to afford the show while also giving back to your audience? Pledge your support on Patreon, or offer up some custom merch.
So, are you ready to brew some bucks from your podcast? Here are 8 different ways you can monetize your podcast efficiently:
1. The first is affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is a way to make a living by recommending high-quality products from other companies. One of the best networks for this is Amazon, which offers promotional content and banners that can be easily embedded into your website.
You can make it work with your podcast too; here is how.
You can host an art show and recommend that listeners buy paints or brushes from the link in the description of your podcast. The link will be an affiliate and whenever a listener will buy the product from your link, you will get a commission.
Now, make sure to reiterate to your listener that they should buy the product from your link and your link only to maximize your revenue and help you grow. Be pleasant and full of energy when you are telling them about the links and products.
2. Getting Sponsorships
Sponsorship on a popular podcast can make money for you. You’ll attract advertisers like this one who will pay you to mention their product (in an ad) during your show. Sponsors typically pay up to $25 per thousand downloads, also called CPM. So the more episodes you upload, the more sponsorships you’ll be able to get!
Affiliate marketing pays you for your efforts, but sponsorships are essentially marketing tools that you use to build up brand awareness. They usually come at the expense of an ongoing fee. Just don’t forget that they pay off even if nobody buys anything
Sponsors often favor podcasts with at least 5,000 downloads per month. Less than 10% of podcasts achieve this. You can still attract sponsors, even with a smaller audience, as long as they cover a niche that aligns with an advertiser’s needs.
3. Asking for Donations
Podcasters can now receive donations from their listeners through many different methods, including Patreon. One-time and monthly donations are the most popular types of contributions.
Offer your listeners some stickers or exclusive sessions if they donate some money to you. This will heavily incentivize them to support your work!
4. Selling Merchandise
If your business has a logo and can find support within its audience, there are many ways to make money with branded merchandise. You’ll need to invest in an e-commerce store, someone capable of making products for you & somewhere to store them.
5. You can sell subscription services
Folks who use a monthly membership to a site usually get a lot more content than they normally would or people who join a closed Facebook group that gets advice from an expert. But if you ought to do this with your podcast you should know that you will have to do A LOT of work!
When asking people to provide you with the recurring income it’s necessary to keep them satisfied. This means giving out good content regularly which can be quite an undertaking.
For some people, this model works really well, for others you’re better off offering a course for a one-off fee. Ultimately, you’re going to need to make sure that your monthly content isn’t repetitive or lackluster – otherwise, people will unsubscribe from your course.
6. You can also Coach/Consult
One deserves to have a personal experience with someone who understands your unique needs, goals, and perspective on things. Coaching is a great way of achieving this personal perspective while still gaining the insight and understanding of an industry expert. And You can provide this type of coaching with the help of your Podcast.
Once you start taking on coaching clients, listen closely to them so that you can find out what issues they all have in common and grow your coaching business with their needs in mind. By forging closer relationships with your clients and helping them on a deeper, more personal level, you’ll be able to create more meaningful relationships that will prompt your customers to share your content.
7. You can sell courses
This is a good option for you if you have limited time and can use past coaching experiences to create an on-demand course.
There are a lot of really great topics that you can talk about in your podcast. If you produce a course, you can create content that people would be interested in and then also make money from it. Start by looking at analytics to identify which areas caused the most subscriber growth.
As we saw in the last section, more & more people today are looking for online courses. The pandemic has forced many graduates to take their learning online, which is why so many learning platforms have popped up over the years.
If there was indeed a perfect time to create a course and sell it, it would be now. You can make minor changes in your course if the time demands one. And by doing this you can sell the same course over and over again. This is a great way of generating passive income or creating additional streams of income.
You can add a pre-recorded ad of your course in the introduction of your podcast. Or you can place the ad for your course somewhere else. The podcast will target your audience and will create the best output from your work.
With covid breaking the world’s back by trapping them inside; online courses are the best way to learn. And you should be making profits off it if you know the trade. Online courses allow flexibility to the student/learner; they can learn at their own pace and timetable. The arena of teaching is changing and your podcast paired with your online courses can make you a part of the changing world!
8. You can market your Premium content
Selling premium content is one of the quickest ways to scale up your podcast and increase revenue. Premium content is different from memberships because it provides you with more in-depth, long-form content than what you would receive by joining or accessing free content.
Premium content is what you could release on episodes that are not available to regular listeners. This includes downloadable episodes or episodes that are only available to certain individuals. Other good options include turning your podcasts into something more tangible, such as case studies, longer-form blog posts, webinars, product guides, or checklists. Interactive content is often what people need to fully get a grasp of your teachings.
One option for monetizing your premium content is Patreon. You can use this service to create a password-protected page or store that provides your exclusive videos; offer a few different options for content. One is a higher level of service compared to your free content, but something less big than coaching or writing services.
So, How do podcasts make money?
The 8 different ways will clarify the technicalities of monetizing your podcast, but in the end, it all falls on you, your hard work, and the consistency that will make you some bucks. Share your wisdom passionately and with sincerity. Be honest with your craft and ultimately that will make you successful.
